Facebook Beacon is now an opt-in program

Facebook Beacon is now an opt-in program. You can modify the settings here.

Quote from Zuckeberg’s open letter on the Facebook Blog:

“…we missed the right balance. At first we tried to make it very lightweight so people wouldn’t have to touch it for it to work. The problem with our initial approach of making it an opt-out system instead of opt-in was that if someone forgot to decline to share something, Beacon still went ahead and shared it with their friends. It took us too long after people started contacting us to change the product so that users had to explicitly approve what they wanted to share. Instead of acting quickly, we took too long to decide on the right solution. I’m not proud of the way we’ve handled this situation and I know we can do better.”

It’s a humble moment for Facebook and it was nicely handled. Thanks for that post.

Some thoughts on this:

The furor over Facebook Beacon wasn’t that users were unwilling to share information and while most people call this a privacy issue, it really isn’t. It would be otherwise ironic for the same people who take naps and tweeze their eyebrows in front of a webcam on Seesmic to complain about privacy. The real issue is user control. Users will share more than you ask of them but you have to give them control. They don’t want to feel like they’ve been trick into doing something. I really have no problem having my Amazon purchases published on my Facebook feed. People already know what music I listen to and when I listened to it because of Last.fm. I have declared that I am a fan of iPhone and Meebo and Mozilla by adding them on my Facebook profile via Facebook Pages. But I published all of that, not Facebook.

User control is key.

For what it’s worth, I maintain my opinion on Facebook (and all social networks) and privacy. Social networks don’t compromise your privacy. It’s what YOU do that compromises it. There are privacy settings on Facebook. You can find them here. I’ve said it many times. Do NOT share anything on Facebook or any site until you have figured out the privacy controls. Consider yourself opted into everything. That’s kinda like securing your house. You can install the fanciest deadbolts and the best security alarm systems money can buy. But they don’t come locked. You have to lock it. You have to activate it. And that’s for your house. Your PRIVATE dwelling. The nagging question in my head is, why do people expect so much privacy in a public space such as the Internet?

Internet privacy. It’s an oxymoron.